Home. Ah, it is nice to be back in familiar surroundings. It would have been perfect if the sun was actually shining and the temperature 10°C higher, but otherwise it is nice to be home again.
After being thoroughly checked through by doctors – Swiss one’s this time – I am now officially on the road to recovery. Yippee!
Uni has started again and my days are filled with lecturers spouting their wisdom and eager minds clicking away.
The autumn fair is upon us, so town is filled with the sweet smell of “Magebrot” and “Rahmtääfeli” (the latter is a caramel sweet only the Swiss know how to make and the former a kind of bread coated in a black sugar / honey icing – absolutely delicious). All sorts of adventurous rides, designed to make the anxious parent fear for the life of their offspring, have sprouted out of the ground. Shouts and laughter as well as the occasional shoe or vomit being hurtled through the air are all apparent throughout Basel’s favourite autumn pleasure.
Last week I had a rather interesting experience:
On Wednesday morning I was chatting away with colleagues at break time, when suddenly a loud voice nearly inducing a heart attack booms out behind me:
“Congratulations Ms Ross!”
I turn around and find our Swiss headmaster beaming away at me.
“Well, thank you Sir, but for what exactly?” I replied somewhat confused.
“You mean you don’t know?” he asks incredulously, his smile vanishing from his face. “But I sent them your name and address, as well as your telephone number!”
“I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is this some kind of joke” I inquire suspiciously.
By then practically my whole class had gathered round to witness this spectacle. They egged him on in turn, trying to get some coherent sense out of him.
“Well, I entered some internship reports written by students who had interned abroad in a trinational prize draw and you have won second prize!” he finally articulates.
“Oh!” is all I manage. But that’s not all: “there’s prize money of 1000 Euros for the second place,” he continues. “And the award ceremony is tomorrow at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (F).”
That was my highlight of the week.
At the award ceremony I was receiving my prize graciously, smiling for the camera etc., when suddenly I hear a stage whisper behind me: my Swiss headmaster was enticing the speaker to let me say a few words of thanks. My blood ran cold. I had not prepared anything! After a brief moment of panic (camouflaged by an idiotic grin) I stammered out some “Thank you’s” to all and sundry, then shot back to my seat as fast as my legs would carry me. Unfortunately my new shoes were rivalling for the position of “shoes made in hell” but I managed to get back to my seat without further mishap.
The apéro was nice, an elaborate mix of cheese, salmon, mini-sausages, wine and orange juice. Very yummy.
October 31, 2004
October 15, 2004
Back again
Have you heard the saying: “you always meet a person twice”? Well, it certainly held true for me: I am currently back in hospital, back in the same ward with the same nurses and doctors. (Ok, no surprise about the doctors there!)
After overdoing it slightly – I went back to work for two days – my body decided to take matters into its own hands and I developed a fever. To rule out infection, I was readmitted and put back on antibiotics. As they weren’t quite sure what was wrong with me, they decided to do a colonoscopy. This procedure includes sticking a 1cm wide (and I do not want to know the length!) flexible rubber tube with an attached camera up one’s behind, enabling them to have a good look at the inside of the intestines. Thank goodness they knocked me out first!
Luckily everything seems to be alright, so I’m getting out of hospital today.
For the rest of my stay here in Malaysia, I am under strict orders to lie down as much as possible, which basically means being cooped up in my room. Well, could have been worse; they might have actually found something!
After overdoing it slightly – I went back to work for two days – my body decided to take matters into its own hands and I developed a fever. To rule out infection, I was readmitted and put back on antibiotics. As they weren’t quite sure what was wrong with me, they decided to do a colonoscopy. This procedure includes sticking a 1cm wide (and I do not want to know the length!) flexible rubber tube with an attached camera up one’s behind, enabling them to have a good look at the inside of the intestines. Thank goodness they knocked me out first!
Luckily everything seems to be alright, so I’m getting out of hospital today.
For the rest of my stay here in Malaysia, I am under strict orders to lie down as much as possible, which basically means being cooped up in my room. Well, could have been worse; they might have actually found something!
October 03, 2004
Recovery
Well, I'm on the road to recovery at last, having been released from hospital last Tuesday. Haven't been able to do much so my life now consists of lounging around in the Executive Suite of the Swiss Garden Hotel (what irony, they even serve authentic swiss potato salad!). At least if I'm completely bored, I'm bored in the lap of luxury!
Seriously though, the rooms here are so cheap, we're paying something like CHF120 per night for the Executive Suite in a four-star hotel!
The parents arrived in full force on Saturday, to make sure their darling daughter has been brought back from the brink of death (har, har) and have subsequently shattered the peace and quiet of my own method of convalescence: retail therapy! On the brink of boredom-induced madness, I'd just managed to convince my brother that shopping is actually beneficial to my healing process. So I spent a few days happily cruising around the malls, when in come the parents and freak to see me popping my daily painkiller (which incidentally happens to be quite similar to Viroxx, a drug just taken off the market as it can cause cardiac arrest).
Apart from shopping I had managed to convince my bro that a drink at a bar would not be too much either, so on the second day of my release (ok, I'm the first to admit I get bored really quickly, but so would you after reading eight books and watching hours of TV, cooped up for seven days in a small boxlike room) we went out. The bar was hopping, the decor was stunning – a Balinese theme, all dark stone & dark wood, water running underfoot with goldfish swimming in pools, cushions everywhere, and huge golden Buddha statues scattered around the place. Really nice.
Seriously though, the rooms here are so cheap, we're paying something like CHF120 per night for the Executive Suite in a four-star hotel!
The parents arrived in full force on Saturday, to make sure their darling daughter has been brought back from the brink of death (har, har) and have subsequently shattered the peace and quiet of my own method of convalescence: retail therapy! On the brink of boredom-induced madness, I'd just managed to convince my brother that shopping is actually beneficial to my healing process. So I spent a few days happily cruising around the malls, when in come the parents and freak to see me popping my daily painkiller (which incidentally happens to be quite similar to Viroxx, a drug just taken off the market as it can cause cardiac arrest).
Apart from shopping I had managed to convince my bro that a drink at a bar would not be too much either, so on the second day of my release (ok, I'm the first to admit I get bored really quickly, but so would you after reading eight books and watching hours of TV, cooped up for seven days in a small boxlike room) we went out. The bar was hopping, the decor was stunning – a Balinese theme, all dark stone & dark wood, water running underfoot with goldfish swimming in pools, cushions everywhere, and huge golden Buddha statues scattered around the place. Really nice.
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